


Maybe Girls Can be Knights

by little0bird



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Before Jaime was an arrogant prick, Brienne doesn't need rescuing, Not Canon Compliant, Not Canon Compliant: The first time Jaime meets Brienne, Robert Baratheon's Coronation, Young Brienne, Young Jaime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2020-10-06 05:35:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20501753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/little0bird/pseuds/little0bird
Summary: Jaime waited until he could no longer hear their footfalls in the gravel, then turned to the girl.  He guessed she might be about nine or ten, but she was uncommonly tall for her age, if that were so.  He almost felt sorry for her. She had to be the homeliest child he’d ever laid eyes on. She’s young, he mused.  She might grow into her mouth.  Her thick hair was blonde, but not a pleasing shade of gold.  It was the rather straw-like in color and coming undone from the elaborate plait, a rose-colored ribbon dangling from the end of the braid.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This popped into my head the other day. What if the first time Jaime met Brienne was when she was a child?

Jaime couldn’t quite make out the words, but the taunting tones were unmistakable. He’d heard them his entire life when people mocked Tyrion. He followed the sound of flesh smacking onto flesh, a group of lower-pitched voices attacking a higher-pitched one. He strode through the twisting paths of the godswood of the Red Keep and came upon a knot of squires surrounding a girl, who stood on the stump of a weirwood tree.

‘Take it back!’ she demanded, batting away the attempted slaps from the squires. 

‘You’re so stupid,’ one of the squires laughed.

‘Girls are supposed to get married, stay at home, and have babies,’ another said with the supreme confidence of a boy who thought he knew everything.

‘Girls can’t fight anyway,’ the third added, voice dripping with contempt. 

The girl launched herself at one of the squires, fists windmilling. She connected solidly with one dressed in the colors of the Tarlys, blood spurting from his nose. She shrieked a battle cry, another fist punching a squire wearing the sigil of the Freys dead in his crotch. The squire doubled over, mouth working like a fish, then toppled to the gravel path. Figuring his interference wouldn’t sully the girl’s honor at this point, Jaime waded into the fight. He booted the last squire in the arse. ‘Get out of here,’ he growled. ‘Take your friends!’

The squires scurried away, dragging the Frey boy between them. 

Jaime waited until he could no longer hear their footfalls in the gravel, then turned to the girl. He guessed she might be about nine or ten, but she was uncommonly tall for her age, if that were so. He almost felt sorry for her. She had to be the homeliest child he’d ever laid eyes on. _ She’s young _ , he mused. _ She might grow into her mouth _. Her thick hair was blonde, but not a pleasing shade of gold. It was the rather straw-like in color and coming undone from the elaborate plait, a rose-colored ribbon dangling from the end of the braid. 

The girl glared at him. ‘What are _ you _ looking at?’ she said sulkily.

‘What were you doing out here?’ Jaime retorted.

‘Don’t like parties,’ she shot back.

‘Really? They have lemon cakes.’

The girl hesitated, but shook her head. ‘Don’t care.’

Jaime’s head tilted to the side. A smear of mud caked the side of her face. The girl’s dress was sapphire blue velvet, dusty now from the fight, the hem torn and sagging. Her knuckles were skinned, but not bleeding. He took a step closer to examine the sigil embroidered on the front of the girl’s dress. _ Quartered shield, azure and rose… Crescent moons. Sunbursts… _ ‘You’re the Tarth girl, aren’t you?’ _ Must be here for Robert’s coronation. The Tarths are Baratheon bannermen after all. _

The girl’s lip curled, revealing what would have been a gap-toothed smile. Had she smiled, of course. ‘Maybe.’ 

Jaime beckoned with one hand. ‘Come on. Why don’t I help you get cleaned up, and I’ll escort you back to your chambers? Then I can find your father and let him know where you’ve gone. Lord Selwyn, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’ Jaime turned and began to make his way to the entrance of the godswood, not waiting to see if the girl followed him or not. Her yellow head bobbed in his peripheral vision, and Jaime cast furtive glances in her direction. She had large eyes, the blue of summer skies. He thought they might prove to be her saving grace when she grew older. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Brienne.’ She yanked at the ribbon until it slithered from her hair. ‘Yours?’

‘Jaime.’ He opened the door to the White Sword Tower. ‘After you, my lady.’

‘I’m not a lady,’ Brienne scowled, clomping into the Round Room. Her eyes grew round as she took in the room. ‘This is for the Kingsguard!’ she breathed.

‘Yes.’

‘But you…’

Jaime chuckled to himself and closed the door. ‘I am one of the Kingsguard.’

‘Where’s your golden armor?’ Brienne challenged.

‘In my sleeping cell. Don’t usually wear it if I’m not on duty.’ He grinned as Brienne heaved a sigh of disappointment mixed with an equal measure of disapproval. ‘Wait here.’ He returned with a large jug of warm water and a basin, as well as clean cloths and soap. He patted one of the chairs around the large table. ‘Sit.’

‘I’m not a dog,’ Brienne huffed. 

‘I beg your pardon.’ Jaime bowed elaborately. ‘Brienne, would you care to take a seat?’ She rolled her eyes and plopped into the chair. Jaime poured water into the basin and soaked a cloth, then began to dab at her knuckles. ‘So, if you’re not a lady, and if you could be anything you wanted, what would you choose?’

‘I want to be a knight,’ Brienne said promptly. 

‘But girls can’t be knights,’ Jaime told her.

‘Why not?’

‘Tradition,’ Jaime said lamely.

‘To the seven hells with tradition,’ Brienne snorted. 

‘Can you even use a sword?’

‘Of course I can,’ Brienne scoffed. Her shoulders wilted a little. ‘A little,’ she confessed. ‘I fight the squires at home. Haven't won yet. But I will!’ Her face tilted up with a pugnacious air that left Jaime no doubt she would one day.

‘And so you shall. If you keep practicing. Hold still.’ Jaime soaked another cloth and began to swab at her face until most of the mud was gone. ‘How old are you?’

‘Eight.’

‘Plenty of time, then.’

‘Why are you being nice to me?’ Brienne asked abruptly. ‘People aren’t nice to me. Most people laugh at me.’ Her chin trembled, but she swallowed the emotions.

As clean as water could make her, Jaime pushed the basin aside. ‘You remind me of my younger brother.’ His mouth twisted. ‘People are mean to him, too.’

‘Why? Is he too tall and too ugly?’

Jaime blinked. _ Oh, child… _ He felt his heart twist a little at the poor girl. How many people in her short life browbeat her about her looks? ‘No,’ he said carefully. ‘Tyrion’s a dwarf.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘He’s very short, but he’s very smart and very clever,’ Jaime added, feeling as if he had to defend Tyrion to this scrap of a child.

‘What’s that?’ Brienne pointed to the White Book, sitting in front of the Lord Commander’s chair.

‘That is the Book of the Brothers.’ Jaime got up and dragged the book to Brienne. ‘Every member of the Kingsguard, all the way from the beginning has their name and deed recorded here.’ He opened the book to a random page and began to idly turn the pages. 

‘Wait!’ Brienne’s hand shot out, but stopped short of the book itself. She peered at the page and wondrous smile spread over her face. 

Jaime glowered at the page. ‘Ssser Duncan… the… Tall…’ he read slowly, nearly squinting with one eye to keep the letters from floating on the page. 

Brienne waved at Ser Duncan’s arms on the upper left corner. ‘We have his shield in the armory at Evenfall,’ she murmured. 

‘Really? How?’

‘Dunno,’ Brienne shrugged. She yawned widely, and belatedly remembering her manners, made a half-hearted attempt to cover her mouth. 

‘I think it’s time I took you back to your chambers,’ Jaime declared. ‘Do you know where they are?’

‘Maegor’s Holdfast. Second floor. By some statue of Baelor the Blessed.’ Brienne sounded unimpressed by the statue. 

Jaime led her back to her chambers, regaling her with some of the sillier tales of his exploits as a squire. He banged a fist on the door Brienne indicated. It was opened by a maid, whose eyes widened at the sight of him escorting Brienne. ‘And here is where I leave you,’ Jaime said. ‘Good night, Brienne.’ He walked away, but not before he caught the maid’s scandalized scolding. ‘Lady Brienne! How could you? That was Jaime Lannister! The Man Without Honor,’ the maid hissed. 

Jaime’s heart sank a little. Not even rescuing little girls could save him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘You still have astonishing eyes,’ Jaime murmured sleepily. ‘Beautiful…’ He seemed to drift off to sleep, leaving Brienne befuddled and bemused. No one had ever used the term beautiful to describe any of her features. She shrugged it off, attributing it to feverish delirium.
> 
> Clearly, he wasn’t in his control of himself.
> 
> Brienne settled in the hard chair next to the bed and drew the blanket thrown over the back around her shoulders. Her head fell against the tall back, and she closed her eyes.
> 
> ‘Talk to me…’
> 
> Her eyes snapped open. He was awake and staring at her. ‘About what?’
> 
> ‘Why you want to be a knight.’

It was her voice, low and melodius, that offered a safe harbor from the swirling demons in his dreams that thew his previous failures in face. He knew that voice. It had goaded and exasperated him for months.

She talked incessantly. About nothing in particular. Islands and waterfalls. Towering cypress trees and lavender. He didn’t think it was real. She hardly spoke outside his fevered dreams. Unless she was castigating him, he’d often had to aggravate and taunt her into speaking more than two words together. One of them was nearly always “Kingslayer.”

He shivered, his fingers groping for the edge of the blankets. He whimpered as the convulsions sent jolts of pain through his right arm. He felt something warm and solid slide into the bed. Strong arms wound around his body. The same arms that had caught him in the bath. She began to sing softly, lips brushing against the edge of his ear. 

He felt safe. 

She was warm. So warm. The shivering ebbed and he drifted off into sleep, her melodies driving away his ghosts. 

* * *

Jaime flung the heavy blankets off and clawed at the collar of the shirt. He was ablaze with fever. His skin stretched so tightly over his bones, he wondered if it would split like a snake. He pried his eyelids open and stared dully at the candles clustered on a table near the bed, following the path of a drop of melted wax. 

A cool hand curved gently over his forehead, replaced by a cool, wet cloth. His eyes flicked up. Large blue eyes, the same hue as summer skies filled his view. A lock of straw-coloured hair fell into her eyes. And he remembered… Jaime had once dislocated his shoulder as a squire. The sensation of the maester whipping it back into place was all at once excruciating pain and blessed relief. It felt the same when the echo of that brief moment came roaring back. The eyes hadn’t changed. Still wary, still guarded. Utterly guileless. But such a fathomless blue that a man could drown in them. ‘I know you…’ His tongue crept across his dry, cracked lips. 

She reached for something he couldn’t see, and delicately smoothed some sort of soothing balm over his lips. ‘Of course you know who I am.’ She straightened the bedding. ‘We spent weeks walking across the Riverlands.’ He heard the trickle of flowing water, and she pressed the edge of a cup to his mouth. 

She tilted the cup and dribbled honeyed water into his parched mouth. He lifted his hand and closed it around her wrist when she made to take the cup away. ‘No… we met before.’ 

She set the cup down and rearranged the cloth on his head. ‘That’s your fever talking.’

He shifted onto his side, groaning at the effort to drag his body into a different position. ‘You were eight. You and your father were in King’s Landing for Robert’s coronation.’ Jaime swallowed and blinked. His vision blurred and swam, and the faint memory of the child she had been superimposed itself over the woman she had become. The corners of his mouth lifted. ‘Three squires were provoking you, and you managed to beat two of them to a pulp.’ He let out a slow breath. ‘I took you back to the White Sword Tower, cleaned the mud off your face, and escorted you back to your chambers.’ 

Brienne’s mouth dropped open. ‘The book.’

‘Yes.’ Jaime made a vague gesture toward the cup. ‘More water?’ Brienne held the cup to his mouth once more. ‘Ser Duncan the Tall. Said his shield was in your father’s hall.’ He coughed and she let him have another sip of water.

‘The armory.’ Flustered, Brienne put the cup down a little too hard and water sloshed over the rim. Desperate for something to do, she snatched the cloth from Jaime’s forehead and dunked it into a basin. She wrung it out with a little more force than she’d intended, because the cloth ripped a little. Brienne forced herself to drape it gently back over Jaime’s forehead. For years she thought perhaps she’d made it all up. People weren’t kind to her, as a rule. And when she grew older, she could never reconcile the memory of the courteous young knight who encouraged her to continue to learn the sword with the stories of the deceitful and dishonourable Kingslayer.

‘You still have astonishing eyes,’ Jaime murmured sleepily. ‘Beautiful…’ He seemed to drift off to sleep, leaving Brienne befuddled and bemused. No one had ever used the term beautiful to describe any of her features. She shrugged it off, attributing it to feverish delirium. 

Clearly, he wasn’t in his control of himself.

Brienne settled in the hard chair next to the bed and drew the blanket thrown over the back around her shoulders. Her head fell against the tall back, and she closed her eyes.

‘Talk to me…’ 

Her eyes snapped open. He was awake and staring at her. ‘About what?’

‘Why you want to be a knight.’

Brienne looked away, lips pressed together. She could prevaricate, dance around the question. It wouldn’t be difficult. She’d done it for nearly two decades. She glanced back at Jaime. His eyes were mere slits. _He won’t remember any of this…_ ‘My brother — my father’s heir — drowned few months before Robert Baratheon’s coronation. We were swimming and the tides were…’ Brienne rolled the edge of the blanket between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Erratic. We were only out there because I’d had a particularly trying lesson with the septa. A storm was coming, so the surf was stronger than usual. Father warned us not to go out too far. Galladon insisted I stay near the shore, to not let the water pass my ankles. He made me promise.’

‘You swore an oath,’ Jaime interjected in a hoarse whisper. 

‘Yes.’ She gripped the edges of the blanket and tried to wrap it around herself so she might disappear within its meager cover. ‘The water pulled him under. Galladon could hold his breath a long time, so when he did not surface right away, I didn’t…’ She exhaled slowly. ‘By the time I realized something was the matter, it was too late.’ Brienne pinched the bridge of her nose. Speaking of Galladon always left her feeling a bit raw about the edges. ‘His body washed ashore a few days later.’ His waterlogged corpse had given her nightmares for months afterward. Brienne pulled her feet onto the chair and wrapped her arms around her knees. ‘I was not the heir anyone wanted,’ she continued, keeping her eyes fixed on the rough weave of the blanket. ‘I was slow and awkward of tongue. No beauty or cleverness to speak of. So I thought if I became a knight, I could earn it and prove I was worthy to be the next Evenstar.’ She lowered her forehead to her bent knees. ‘When Renly called for support, I begged my father to let me go.’

Brienne waited for a cutting remark, and when none was forthcoming, looked up. 

Jaime had drifted into a fitful sleep.

A cold draft tickled the back her neck. The fire burned low in the grate. Brienne unfolded herself from the chair and padded to the fire. She added more wood as quietly as she could until it crackled merrily. The accommodations left something to be desired, but Lord Bolton had been generous with the firewood. She stood over the incongruously cheery flames, holding her hands out to warm them. 

She never spoke about the young Ser Jaime to anyone. Not even her father. She didn’t know about the Kingslayer then. Not really. She knew of him, of course. Everyone did. But that evening, Jaime had only worn the plain, buff surcoat of his Kingsguard uniform, open at the throat. No sigil to identify him as a Lannister. To her eight-year old self, he might as well have been a prince from one of her storybooks, with his golden hair gleaming in the setting sun. 

Of course she hadn’t recognized him when she followed Catelyn Stark into the pen where he sat on the muddy ground, chained to a post. The filthy, sardonic man bore little resemblance to the amiable boy he had been. Age and grime had darkened his hair. The beard and long, unkempt hair obscured his face. The lively twinkle that had danced in his eyes had dimmed into aloof cynicism. The lingering softness of childhood that had rounded his features had sharpened into hard edges.

Brienne peeked over her shoulder and studied his sleeping face. She could see it now, the hint of the vulnerable boy peeping through the near-impenetrable bitterness.

The bedding rustled. Jaime writhed, moaning. ‘You don’t frighten me. I’ll fight you.’ 

Brienne strode back to the bed. She picked up his hand between hers. ‘Shhh.’ _I’ll defend and protect you from the ghosts. _‘I swore an oath to keep you safe. I won’t let anyone else harm you.’ She sank to the edge of the chair. Brienne squeezed his hand, while she finger-combed his hair away from his face.

Jaime awoke with a startled gasp, eyes wide with fright, fingers convulsing in Brienne’s hand.. He glanced wildly around the room, searching for the misty figures of Arthur Dayne, Lewyn Martell, Gerold Hightower, or Rhaegar Targaryen. But darkened corners held nothing more sinister than thick clumps of cobwebs. ‘It was only a dream.’

Brienne reached for the cup of water. ‘Here.’

Jaime snorted. The cup of water almost always materialized as soon as he woke. ‘Do you wish to help me piss again, wench?’ He laughed at her embarrassed flush, but obediently took a sip all the same. She put the cup down and busied herself with putting the disordered bedding to rights. The mirth faded as he studied her. The shadows under her eyes had grown more pronounced. ‘You should sleep.’

Brienne stifled a yawn behind her hand. ‘I’m all right.’

Jaime shifted, trying to find a comfortable position on the lumpy mattress. ‘Or pass the night in your own bed.’

She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and settled against the back of the chair. When he’d regained consciousness in the bath, Jaime had begged her to not let Qyburn take his arm. She vowed to stay with him until he could fight his own battles. ‘The chair will do.’ Brienne’s eyes drifted shut. In mere moments the change in her breathing signalled that she slept. 

Jaime gazed at her, fighting sleep so as to avoid the shades of his past. He didn’t wish to face them without her at his side. He wondered, briefly, why it was Brienne that stood by his side in his dreams, and not Cersei. 

Arthur Dayne’s voice whispered in his ear. 

_In the name of the Warrior, I charge to be brave. In the name of the Father, I charge you to be just. In the name of the Mother, I charge you to defend the innocent._

She blamed herself for her brother’s death. That much was obvious. She’d spent the majority of her young life trying to live up to the ghost of her dead brother. And — by her estimation — failing miserably. She’d set an impossibly high standard for herself. _I was not the heir anyone wanted_, she’d said. So she’d sent herself on a futile quest.

_Any knight can make another knight_, he reminded himself as the fog of slumber tugged at him once more. _Perhaps I ought to do something about that…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quotes in Jaime's dream are from A Storm of Swords (chapter 44, Jaime VI)

**Author's Note:**

> Jaime is around 18 years old here.


End file.
